Early society and economy

The population of Central Africa has evolved in three broad time zones. During the earliest, which covered a million years, early humans sought food and shelter throughout the savanna regions and probably in the forest as well, though the forest may have been much thinner in the great dry phases of Africa’s climatic history. In the second phase Homo sapiens, modern man and woman, appeared in the region and absorbed or eclipsed the thinly scattered original inhabitants over a 100,000-year stretch. The third phase covered less than 10,000 years and brought the development of the societies that have become familiar to modern history. These societies arose from a blend of old populations familiar with the environment and new immigrants with fresh skills to impart.

Early toolmakers

The oldest population of Central Africa is known almost exclusively from the evidence of its tools. Humankind had made a great intellectual step beyond its fellow primates by learning how to fashion and use tools of a regular form for a specific purpose. The most famous of the Paleolithic tools are the Acheulian knives, oddly known to scientists as “hand axes,” used to skin animals and cut meat into chunks that could be chewed raw. Those used in Central Africa bear an uncanny resemblance to those used in many other parts of the Old World, which suggests that learning was an intercontinental phenomenon, however slow the transfer of technology may have been. Some of the tools used in Central Africa bear marks of local specialization and adaptation, but Central Africa was broadly integrated into the culture of the Paleolithic Period.

The middle phase of Central Africa’s prehistory saw significant changes, but again the changes suggest that the region was linked to development in other parts of the world. The use of fire to roast vegetable foods as well as meats increased the range of diet and probably resulted in greater human health and fertility. The expanding population may have benefited from new skills in communication. The first use of language enabled societies to become more organized and efficient in their command of natural resources. Mobility in search of food was still the norm, but speech allowed the coordination of effort on a scale that animals could not achieve despite their powers of instinct. Tools became ever more varied, though the great majority were probably made of wood or vegetable and animal fibre and so have not survived in the archaeological record. The stone weapons, on the other hand, have survived and show a growing inventiveness among the scattered small bands of Central African peoples who survived for millennia in competition with their much fiercer and stronger animal neighbours.